Our Pathbreaking Work and Tradition of Service

With our clinical work, education programs and world-class research on the nature and causes of mental illness – from addiction and schizophrenia to autism spectrum disorders – the UMass Department of Psychiatry is helping individuals and families transform their lives. We are proud of our accomplishments and pleased to be a part of the nationally ranked University of Massachusetts Medical School and UMass Memorial Health Care system.

The department's "bench to bedside" and "bedside to community" research focuses on treatment and prevention.

Our products and services reach across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and, now, are found in numerous sites internationally.

Our more than 300 faculty and 2,000 staff members work in many settings within the Medical School and UMass Memorial Health Care, the public sector, and the community at large.

Douglas M. Ziedonis MD, MPH Chairman, Dept. of Psychiatry

Latest Psychiatry Department News

UMMS receives $2.5 million CDC grant to help ob/gyns treat depression during, after pregnancyUMass Medical School has developed an innovative program to reach more women with perinatal depression by empowering obstetricians to treat patients' psychiatric needs in their own practices. Now, with a first-of-its-kind, $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), investigators at UMMS will test the new approach as a potential national model to address the urgent public health problem of depression during and after pregnancy. Read the story in UMassMed Now.

The 2nd Annual Food Addiction Conference is a one-day conference that will bring together physicians, nurses, social workers, dieticians, mental health counselors and others to learn different methods to screen/assess for food addiction, and treatment interventions for people that are addicted to one or more foods. Conference will be held on Friday, October 16, 2015, at UMass Medical School. Click here for more information.

“Be Mentally Well” Symposium is a one-day symposium for anyone struggling with food issues, their family members and the professionals that work with them directly. The Symposium will be held on Saturday, October 17, 2015, at UMass Medical School. Click here for more information.

Dr. Kristina Deligiannidis' poster abstract entitled "Plasma Neuroactive Steroids and GABA Concentrations in Peripartum Women At-risk for Postpartum Depression" was designated a Top Poster Finalist for the SOBP 70th Annual Meeting. The poster abstract was 1 of 45 abstracts chosen as a top poster finalist out of a total of 823 scientific poster abstracts, representing the top 5% of all accepted poster abstracts for presentation. Co-authors on the poster included: Aimee Kroll-Desrosiers, Shunyan Mo, Hien P. Nguyen, Abby Svenson, Nina Jaitly, Janet Hall, Bruce Barton, Anthony Rothschild and Scott Shaffer. The study was funded by the CCTS Pilot Program Project grant (KMD) provided by UMMS CTSA grant UL1TR000161 (KMD) and NIMH 5K23MH097794 (KMD).

Jean Frazier named director of Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center at UMMSChild and adolescent psychiatry leader Jean A Frazier, MD, has been named the director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center at UMMS, a new program that brings together three entities—the Child and Adolescent Neurodevelopmental Initiative (CANDI), the Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders (CANDO) and the former Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center for Developmental Disabilities. Read the article in UMassMed Now.

Spotlight

Can a genetic test help predict which antidepressant will be most effective?

By Sandra GrayUMass Medical School CommunicationsDepression is the most commonly diagnosed mental illness, and antidepressants are the most frequently prescribed treatments for it. But with dozens of medications to choose from, and with individuals responding better to some drugs than to others—possibly due to genetic differences that affect how the medications are metabolized and how they act on the brain—patients must often try several medications before finding one that is most effective.

"It's a lot of trial and error even for those of us who are experts, and most antidepressants are prescribed by primary care physicians, not psychiatrists," said UMass Medical School psychiatrist Anthony Rothschild, MD, the Irving S. and Betty Brudnick Chair in Psychiatry, professor of psychiatry and director of the Center for Psychopharmacologic Research and Treatment at UMMS.Read more...